Winner of the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes, this powerful drama from director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust & Bone) follows a former Tamil Tiger soldier as he flees from the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war to begin a new life in a Parisian suburb.

Dheepan

Jacques Audiard

In A Prophet, Jacques Audiard pulled his
audience deep inside a powerful prison
drama. In Rust and Bone, he brought the
same intensity and authenticity to an
unlikely love story. In Dheepan, which won
the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year, Audiard
turns his piercing focus to a story so ubiquitous
it practically hides in plain sight. What
happens to the millions of migrants who flee
conflict zones to find new homes in the cities
of the west? In the case of the Tamil family
at the centre of this searing film, conflict is
never far behind.

The film begins in Sri Lanka at the end of
the civil war as a Tamil soldier (Jesuthasan
Antonythasan), burns the bodies of his fallen
comrades. The guns are silenced, his family
has been killed, and he seeks a way out.
He and Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) are
strangers in a refugee camp, but they cobble
together a fake family with young Illayaal
(Claudine Vinasithamby). It's enough to
fool the aid workers and get them to France.

Audiard establishes the ruthlessly pragmatic
ways of these three war survivors
early on. Once in the outskirts of Paris, they
must use those same skills to navigate their
crime-ridden housing complex. Securing
their position in France means making
their false family real, but past violence and
present threats combine to exert a rising
pressure that is bound to explode.

Working with screenwriters Noé Debré
and Thomas Bidegain (who respectively
wrote and directed Cowboys, also at this
year's Festival), Audiard finds both dramatic
opportunity and moral depth in this
migrant tale.

Dheepan's conclusion was controversial
at Cannes, with viewers taking sides on its
motivations and meanings. Whether you
follow the news headlines, the logic of film
narrative, or both, you'll find significance in
the fact that Dheepan ends as it begins.